If You're Ready, Heart Is Open (I'll Be Waiting)
by SereneCalamity
Summary: Mike would wait however long it took. Mileven. Oneshot.


**Alright! I _adored_ this song, and I just really wanted to write something about them to it!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the title, which comes from _Find Me_ by Sigma. **

It had been over six months since Jane Hopper, fondly nicknamed Eleven, had left the town of Hawkins. She was only seventeen, but she was so smart that she had been bumped up a grade at school, and so she had already graduated, while all of her friends were in their last year. The day after she graduated, she had caught a bus out of town after a tearful goodbye with her best friends and her adopted father, Jim Hopper.

She had been talking about this for a while.

Finding her other family.

Her _biological_ family.

A girl had added her on Facebook about a year before she had left, her name was Kali Prasad, and they had been in the same foster home when they were younger. Kali lived in Pittsburgh and she had told Eleven that she had some friends with the adoption agency who would be able to connect her with her family, so that was where Eleven had gone.

Jim hadn't been happy about it, and from the first time she had mentioned going, he had been against it. He had told her that it wasn't safe, and that they could go together when he had some vacation time. That had been enough for a couple of months, but when Eleven got an idea into her head, it just grew and bloomed and by the time her graduation was a week out, she was telling Mike Wheeler that she had brought herself a bus ticket without any return trip.

Mike was trying to be okay.

He was trying to act as though he wasn't missing the girl that he had been in love with since he was twelve years old when they had first met.

But she had never been very good with texting or keeping up with Facebook messages, and so other than a few sporadic messages and liking short videos of Mike playing with his band, there hadn't been much contact. They had spoken on the phone twice, but it had been a bit awkward, neither of them good with conversations that weren't face-to-face.

It had sucked that Eleven hadn't been around through the summer holidays, because Mike and his friends had a lot of gigs and she had always come with them to help set up and had cheered them on, and Mike had been trying to psych himself up to finally make a move, and obviously that hadn't happened now. He was trying to be happy for her, though, because she had talked about finding her biological family and get to know them, and he wanted her to be happy.

About a month ago, he had to peace with it.

At least, that's how Steve Harrington had called it.

Mike had thrown himself into his music and into his school work and he wasn't missing Eleven has hard as he had been before. He still missed her, of course. Things were happening and he would occasionally think to himself that he wished he could be experiencing this with her, but she was doing what she needed to do, and so he needed to do what he needed to do.

Focus on his music and getting into college and spend the last high school year of his life with his best friends.

Tonight was a pretty important gig, actually. There was a music producer coming along, a friend of one of Lucas Sinclair's cousins, to listen to them. It wasn't the first time a producer had stopped by, the town of Hawkins was small but there had been a couple of good singers and musicians to come from there, but this was the third time this particular producer had come by, and they felt like that was saying something. They were doing a few new songs tonights, two of which had been completely written by Will Byers and then one that was a cover of a Sigma song.

"It's going to be _fine_ ," Dustin Henderson was telling them with a flick of his curly hair. It was kind of slicked back, something that Steve had helped him learn how to style over the past few months since they had become weirdly close. "Stop freaking out."

"I'm not freaking out," Mike scrunched up his nose and rolled his eyes at Dustin, looking back down at his guitar and tapping his thumb a couple of times against the body.

"He's freaking out," Lucas smirked and Dustin grinned adorably. Mike narrowed his eyes at both of them and Will finally looked up from where he had been scribbling in the little book that he carried everywhere he went.

"Leave him alone," he rolled his eyes at their group of friends and ran his fingers through his short hair. Dustin and Lucas were still grinning and giggling to each other, but they didn't make any more comments directly to him. Mike usually liked to be left alone directly before a show—except by Will and Eleven, because they never pushed him too much—and it was only five minutes before they went on, so he was beginning to feel the nerves in his arms and tightening his shoulders. He felt this way before all of their shows, and once he was on stage and the spotlight was on them and he couldn't see the crowd and he was getting lost in the music he felt a lot better, but psyching himself up until that point could take a bit.

The songs that Will wrote were beautiful, but they were personal to Will. Will wasn't interested in being on stage at all, even though he had a nice voice and could pay the bass, and he was happy just helping with writing their music, doing most of it himself.

The song that Mike had brought to the group was called _Find Me_ by Sigma. He had actually heard Nancy Wheeler playing it, probably when she was alternating making out with Steve and Jonathan Byers or when she was watching them make out, and at first he had just shrugged it off like some girly song. But then he'd heard it again in the car when he and Will were going for a drive, and he actually quite liked it.

He wasn't going to be all cheesy and weird about it, like Lucas could get with Max Mayfield, but the song definitely reminded him of Eleven.

He didn't _say_ that to his group, but they weren't stupid, the lot of them had been friends since they were in preschool, so they knew what he was thinking when he had selected the song. Luckily enough though, they had all liked the song well enough, and it sounded good, especially with Max on the keyboard, which was a new addition over the summer.

"You ready?" Jonathan asked, pulling back the thick curtain that separated the back room from the stage. Jonathan worked at the bar, had been there for nearly two years now, and he had been promoted to supervisor not long ago. Nancy and Steve loved it because they got free drinks and Mike and the rest of the group loved it because Jonathan made sure that they got paid up front and he also turned a blind eye to them having a few beers, as long as they weren't stupid about it.

"We're ready," Dustin said with a wide grin. Jonathan nodded and then ducked back out. There was live music at this bar every night of the week, and the group—their little band called _Stranger Things_ —had a permanent spot on the Saturday night line up for an hour and a half.

Jonathan introduced them and they took the stage, Will helping with last minute adjustments to the microphones and equipment before quickly jumping off stage to go and sit next to Steve and Nancy, who were at every gig, every weekend, even the ones at the bars out of town. Jonathan came when he could as well, although give he worked at a bar, a lot of the weekend nights they preformed, he was working.

The gig went well.

They had only had a couple that _hadn't_ gone well, and those had mainly been when they had first started performing.

As well as the one about a month after Eleven left, when Mike was having an off week.

They did the cover of _Find Me_ as their second to last song, since they always finished on an up beat one. The music was quiet in this one, and Dustin only tapped out a couple of beats on the drums throughout it. Mike was glad that he couldn't see anyone from the lights that were glaring up on them and making the audience just a wallowing hole of black, because if he could see, he would be able to see Nancy's knowing look, Will's sympathetic smile and Steve's cheesy grin there in the front table.

The words were real, though.

He could wait.

He would wait however long it took.

When Eleven was ready to come back, he would be there, waiting for her.

" _If you're ready, heart is open, I'll be waiting, come find me..._ " Mike finished, his voice trailing off, Max stopping with her backing vocals for the last few lines, and then there was silence in the crowd before there was clapping. Mike's heart was heavy in his chest, and he was glad when Lucas moved on quickly, introducing their next song, and Dustin began banging out a quick beat on the drums. It took him a moment to recover, but he quickly caught up with the new song, joining his voice to Max and Lucas'.

After their gig, they ducked off stage, and Jonathan had brought them all a bottle of beer to celebrate, like he always did. Mike was breathing heavily, just like the others, feeling the adrenaline pumping through them. Mike's hand tugged through his long, shaggy curls that were hanging over his forehead and were feeling a little sweaty from the heat of the lights and the adrenaline that had filled him when he was on stage, and he grinned as Will came back and gave him a tight hug.

"The new songs sounded _amazing_ ," he stated with a grin. "Your voice always does my songs justice." Mike opened his mouth to reply, but then Will continued. "I, uh...Also sent a snapchat to El, of your song for her." Mike didn't bother to try and disagree with that, because Will was his best friend and would see through it, even more easily than their other friends. There was a shout from Dustin that drew their attention, the disgust on the other boys face clear as he realized that Lucas and Max were trying to sneak off for some alone time together.

They had almost finished packing up when Mike's phone started vibrating in his back pocket. He ignored it the first time, but then he felt it start vibrating again and he stood up, pulling it out of his pocket and having a look. A photo in terrible lighting came up, one of him and Eleven, her on his lap at a party just before she graduated, with her arm tight around him and her face smushed against his.

He nearly dropped his phone at his eagerness to answer the call.

"El?" Mike gasped out and Dustin looked up from where he had just closed one of their cases. "Hey, uh—how're things?" He tried to sound casual, but his face was the opposite, and Dustin just rolled his eyes at his friend.

"Hi, Mike," her voice was soft and sweet in his ear. "I'm good. How're you?"

"I'm good," Mike parroted back, nearly tripping over the words. He heard her giggle on the other end of the phone.

"Um, I can't talk long," she continued and Mike felt disappointment wash over him. "Because I'm about to get on the bus. But I...I was going to wait until tomorrow when I was back before seeing you, but...I'm coming back, Mike," she told him and his eyes widened. "I should be back around seven thirty tomorrow morning."

"You're coming back?" Mike managed to get out and he could practically hear Eleven's smile on the other end of the phone.

"I am," she murmured. "I—ah, shit," she was cut off by a distant shout. "We're boarding the bus, but—you'll be there. Tomorrow. Right?"

"Yes! I'll get there at seven, just in case you come in early!" He promised her enthusiastically and he heard her laugh again.

"Okay...Bye, Mike," she told him.

"Bye, El," Mike ended the conversation, a grin breaking his face in two.

 **Let me know what you think x**


End file.
